The thought-feeders

By R. R. WINTERBOTHAM
( Author of The Time Maker , Status Quo , etc. )
High in the stratosphere the two pilots encountered the living clouds and found out what it meant to eat your words—literally!
The inventor, Dr. Kempster Duerkes, was in his best spirits, which made him nearly as sparkling as a sphinx. His new airplane, the stratosphere scout, had risen from the ground eight miles in the air.
It works! he beamed in ecstasy, watching the altimeter.
It's a neat job, admitted the pilot, Captain Lewis Hawes, condescendingly. Inventors were nice, but they were vastly over-rated. The men who flew the planes, not the men who built them, made all the discoveries in aviation.
Neat job? Dr. Duerkes frowned at the understatement. My boy, it's perfection! The ship is faultless as the logic of the universe!
Dr. Duerkes regarded pilots as being mentally under-aged people who did their best to retard aviation by regarding all new inventions and refinements as crackpot ideas.
With this gulf of disrespect lurking between them it was strange that these two men should have become companions. However, they did have a few things in common. Although Dr. Duerkes called Captain Hawes a boy, there was scarcely any difference in actual ages—with exception noted for Dr. Duerkes' idea of the captain's mental age. Besides, both men had a high regard for the stratosphere and the stratosphere scout formed a bond between them. It was a strange companionship, but stranger things were about to happen.
If I tried to imitate the logic of the universe, the captain retorted, I'd never be able to do a thing. The only real logic in the universe is man's. He invented the sport of making one and one equal two.
Nonsense! Dr. Duerkes replied stiffly. The universe is an orderly thing. It obeys fixed laws. It never varies in its course. The universe is one thing we can depend upon.
If you ask me, Captain Hawes said, sending the plane up another thousand feet, anything can happen.